2018 is an epic year for the game developer of Fortnite. A market research firm reveals that Epic Games raked in billions of dollars in revenue last year.
According to analyst company SuperData, Fortnite — the wildly popular 100-player Battle Royale game played on PS4, XB1, PC, Mac, Switch, and iOS — generated an estimated $2.4 billion revenue in 2018 for Epic Games, making it the market leader in free-to-play games.
Fortnite Tops Free-To-Play Category
Based on its findings, SuperData notes that while Epic Games made more money from players' purchases of character skins and emotes, 34 percent of U.S. gamers also paid for a seasonal battle pass, a feature in a Battle Royale that rewards players with in-game items by playing and completing challenges during a given time.
The results further show that in the free-to-play category, Nexon's Dungeon Fighter Online came in second to Fortnite with $1.5 billion in revenue. Fortnite also made much more than Tencent's Arena of Valor (Honour of Kings) with $1.3 billion, League of Legends with $1.4 billion, Pokémon Go with $1.1 billion, and Candy Crush Saga with $1 billion.
The online multiplayer game also earned more than twice the revenue of PUBG, the top-grosser in premium PC and console market with $1.035 billion. Ranking second under this category is FIFA 18 that made $790 million in revenue while Grand Theft Auto V occupies the third spot with $628 million.
It Isn't Surprising
The Verge, however, pointed out that although 2018 turns out to be a huge year for Epic Games, it shouldn't be surprising. SuperData initially reported last April that Fortnite had been making $300 million revenue each month. The Battle Royale game has been unstoppable with its subsequent release on mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch.
Furthermore, SuperData foresees that this year, game developers will also launch their video games on multiple platforms following the whopping success of Fortnite. They will also look into developing cloud-gaming services amid the imminent rollout of 5G mobile networks.
SuperData, Nielsen's gaming market intelligence firm, conducts analysis based on point-of-sale data from game publishers, developers, and payment service providers, transaction-level data, including the monthly spending of digital gamers from around the world.
Fortnite is dubbed as the biggest pop culture phenomenon of 2018, with an estimated 200 million players worldwide.
